In the assembly of electronic apparatus it is necessary to position electronic device packages which have multiple pin connectors and the like on multiple preformed locations on a printed circuit board. The multiple preformed locations for receiving the pin connectors on a printed circuit board may constitute holes in the printed circuit board or areas on the surface of the printed circuit board to which the pin connectors may be soldered such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,260 entitled Fasteners for Surface Mounting of Printed Circuit Board Components. Frequently, it is also necessary to locate a heat sink on the electronic device package so that intimate thermal contact is maintained therebetween.
It is also sometimes necessary to attach the heat sink on the printed circuit board and this is commonly accomplished by structures projecting from the heat sink and mounted on preformed locations on the printed circuit board so that the heat sink can be securely attached to the printed circuit board such as by soldering. More often than not, these structures are separate components from the heat sink and include some releasable arrangement so that the heat sink can be removed from the printed circuit board if desired. Thus, in order to mount an electronic device package and a heat sink, it is necessary that a multiplicity of pin connectors and structures be simultaneously aligned with the preformed locations on the printed circuit board. In the past sub-assemblies of parts, such as heat sinks and transistors were manually assembled and then manually placed with the pin connectors and structures on the appropriate locations in the printed circuit board. Manifestly, such manual assembly techniques are slow, labor intensive and thus expensive.
Many electronic circuits are currently being assembled by robots or the like and, after the electronic device packages are placed on the printed circuit board, mass soldering techniques are utilized so that all the electronic components, including the electronic device packages and the heat sinks, are soldered to the printed circuit board simultaneously and virtually instantaneously. Up to now it has remained necessary, because of the alignment problems, to manually assemble the electronic device packages to their heat sinks and then manually assemble the sub-assembled parts on the printed circuit boards.